Roof, wiring and drainage, asked in every survey
Sales saved this year by having them ready
The week in which the survey usually lands
The claim
“The survey is the buyer’s problem.”
It is the buyer who pays for it, so vendors tend to treat the survey as something that happens to someone else. It lands in week ten, the surveyor asks three questions, and nobody in the house can answer them.
The questions never change. When was the roof last replaced, when was the house rewired, and where does the drainage run. An answer of “we are not sure” turns each one into an allowance, and three allowances together are enough to reopen a price that took eight weeks to agree.
What we did
The three dates found before the survey is booked, and put in the particular.
Since the spring we ask for the three dates at the valuation and chase the paperwork before launch. Twice this year the buyer’s surveyor raised all three, and both times the answers were already in the contract pack.
What the three dates did
Roof 2015, rewired 2011
Price held
Drainage traced to the lane
Exchanged in week eleven
Roof date not found
Allowance agreed
None of this is difficult. It is simply easier in week one, with the owner in the house and time to look, than in week ten with a buyer waiting for a reply.
Written between viewings · Havilon & Co.